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When will wis fix rating system? Topic

Posted by rmancil on 11/18/2012 9:18:00 AM (view original):The current rating system does not mirror real life results. It fails to give stronger consideration to late season w-L vs early. It also rates neutral field losses as less important than road losses. Head to head CC W-L do not count any more than reg season. Seems like this could be fixed with out a lot of major effort.

This is the issue and goes to the focus for most players which is to win and play for a N.C.

Ok, since I already made my point about this not being as important as other things, I will stick to your point.

Certainly some small tweaking needs to happen to the ranking system. Many people are very unhappy with the early rankings where a team is ranked, then beats another ranked team, and all of a sudden falls completely out of the rankings altogether. While most experienced posters make the point that it usually works out by the end of the season, I think you can show evidence that it doesn't always. Others, of course, are much more keen on understanding why they missed the playoffs despite a better record or SOS than team X who got the last 2 spots instead. Still others will rue the missed opportunity to play in the NC game even when their #3 beats the #1 in the CC. In real life, that #1 would never edge the #3 into the final game.

But if you think a simple reweighting of CCs to regular season games will fix this system's flaws for everyone, I think you are very mistaken. It very well could be just adding or changing a scale factor within the code to change the significance of road losses compared to CC losses. But how much is enough? In what situations could it be too much? What if the fix solves your particular issue but created another imbalance in a different situation. And if you are fixing the end of the season rankings, why not get in there and fix the early season rankings too. Trying to make the rankings more accurately reflect how they behave in real life could be much more difficult than what they have in place now. And even if they made a better stab at that problem, how will those changes affect the end of season rankings? Would we still agree that the rankings get the best teams into the final spots "most of the time?"

There are about 100 D1A NCGs and 300 other divisional playoffs generated every year. If there is a flaw in the system, it's bound to show up. It would be a major effort to fix the ranking system completely. Though, I appreciate that you are only asking them to fix the final rankings and I grant you that that would be much simpler. But given that they only have one developer assigned to this project and the fact that he has probably never even looked at this part of the code before, he can't make any changes and get it adequately tested and pushed out without putting the engine revamp on a significant hold.

I also missed a D1A NC game because the ranking system thought 2 teams were better than me even though I was perhaps more deserving than 1 of them. So I understand your frustration. Once the "much better" engine is in place, I hope he does spend some time looking at the ranking system. It might be a decent 95% solution now, I think there are improvements that could and should be made. I missed the NCG and was a little unhappy for a while but then I just reloaded and tried again... eventually getting to the NCG (and losing it) a few seasons later. It sucks but you'll get over it!

EDIT: And by the way, you titled your thread "When will wis fix rating system?" Given my understanding of what WIS' priorities are, I feel my initial answer was terse but not incorrect or hostile.

rmancil, Norbert actually tried to fix the problem with this update listed below. If I remember correctly, there were complaints about WIS ranking and SOS which resulted in the formula change we now have.
It needs some work, but I agree with cydrych statement, " if you think a simple reweighting of CCs to regular season games will fix this system's flaws for everyone, I think you are very mistaken. It very well could be just adding or changing a scale factor within the code to change the significance of road losses compared to CC losses. But how much is enough? In what situations could it be too much? What if the fix solves your particular issue but created another imbalance in a different situation."

From Nov 15, 2011 update: Gridiron Dynasty has been updated with the following changes:

Formation IQ and GPA is now displayed on the Player Profile and Recruit Profile.

Formation practice time will develop player Formation IQ.

Formation IQ will be used within the engine to modify some player ratings while in the associated formation. Worlds will have their current seasons as grace period where Formation IQ will not affect play results in the engine. The season after their current season will start using Formation IQ.

Chance for a penalty will now use Formation IQ, Game Instinct and Technique of players. Was just using Game Instinct and Technique. Overall chance of penalties have been decreased slightly.

Chance for negative running plays now take intro account the offensive and defensive formation match up.

The scheduling process has been updated to minimize the chance that a team has less than 5 non-Conference games.

Conference tie-breakers will now use head-to-head and then overall record. Used to have those reversed.

Kicker and Punter ratings now use their raw ratings in the engine versus normalizing them for the different divisions. So low-end DIA kickers will no longer be worse than high-end DIII kickers.

School minimum Reputation and Loyalty grades on Jobs page have been updated to match team Reputation and Loyalty grade. Previously some jobs could show the same grade but then say you were not eligible.

Sim AI recruiting throughout recruiting period has been slightly adjusted to overcome a bug where the Sim AI schools could make much more recruiting efforts against a recruit without any limits.

The Loyalty hit for making a job application has been removed. There are still the other limits on applying for a job.

A few new stats have been added to the box score for games and on player profiles. These will be 0 for games played before the update.

Added check to not go for it on team's side of the field on 4th down, except in end of game type situations. Used to sometimes have a team go for it on 4th deep inside their own territory even if the team was winning.

BUG FIX: fixed a bug where processing practice for a player would throw an exception and cause the rest of the team's practice to be skipped.

BUG FIX: fixed a bug in changing a player's position that would cause an error on the depth chart page.

BUG FIX: turnovers on box score will display correctly for first half and second half.

BUG FIX: fixed a bug in the job processing that would sometimes reward the wrong team with the job.

BUG FIX : pass interference in the end zone was rewarding ball on 2 yard line instead of awarding the 15 yard penalty when 15 yards would not place penalty in end zone.

BUG FIX: cleaned up some timeout and end of game logic to help with some questionable calls.

I am aware that it has been changed from where it was several seasons back. It still has issues that need to be addressed. You should never see the 3rd ranked team with the 10 rated SS beat the 1st place club with the 3rd rated SS in the CC by 19 leaving both clubs with identical records fail to play in the N.C. game.

Clearly updates have been done with out a melt down I think it is fair to think that indeed the product can be upgrade again.

I just want the game AND rankings to make sense. And one cant be afraid of what MIGHT happen if u tweak it. By that logic noone wuld ever do ANYTHING in life cuz "it may turn out bad" or "make things worse" . Never Know till u try.

They arent going to fix the rating system anytime soon. Too many people are still paying for their product, and they (WIS/GD) still see the game engine as the great problem area. I think they are taking a micro vision of their products problems rather than a macro vision. I have made a nuisance of myself recently to illustrate the same thing. In Heisman this past season, my Fresnot St. team was, after 12 games, 10-2 with a SOS of 110; Cent Michigan was also 10-2, SOS 114. I have just won a road game over a bad conf opponent 33-0, and LOST 11 points in RPI, Cent Michigan had just lost at HOME to a mediocre Sim AI team, lost only five RPI spots. My two losses were to the #3 or #4 team (Penn St) and to Wyoming, who went on to a bowl. So, at that point in the seaon, although our teams were almost identical in regards to on-field results, Cent Michigan was #39 in RPI, I was #56 after having gotten to #45.

What diffrence does it all make, you may rhetorically ask (I know Cydrych will)? Well, beacuse of the very large difference in RPI between two very similar quality teams, Cent Michigan went on to play and lose a level three bowl, while my Fresno State team went on and won it's level one bowl game--- against the Sim AI team Cent Mich had lost to in wek 12. No big deal right? Well, Cent Michigan gets bonus points, Fresno State doesnt. Also, the guy running Cent Michigan gets a "bumP' I suppose in looking for a better job, should he choose to, since he made it to a much higher level bowl.

By the way, the two teams records against common opponents? Fresno State 3-0, Cent Michigan 2-1.

Similar situation have happened to me too regularly in my GD "career" to NOT complain about it. The lack of bonus points takes "money" out of my pocket. My team produced results every bit as good as Cent Michigan, yet his team was rewarded, mine wasnt. That sort of situation goes right to the heart of the problem with GD.... if there is supposed to be a level playing field, I am not getting the chance to play on it. It wasnt the oddball game results that finally caused me to toss my hands up in the air and move on, it was the inequitable ratings that did it. I see no indication they are looking to fix the ratings/RPI part of their game in anything like the forseeable future.

So, I bought Grey Dog, and am now a GD "expatriate" getting ready to play in at least one of the on-line leagues orgainzed through their website by owners of their software.

For those sticking with GD, these forums will continually be filled with complaints about the same game issues and problems..... and isnt that one of the definitions of insanity, to do the same thing in the same way over and over (playing GD) and expecting different results?

Posted by rmancil on 11/20/2012 5:00:00 PM (view original):I am aware that it has been changed from where it was several seasons back. It still has issues that need to be addressed. You should never see the 3rd ranked team with the 10 rated SS beat the 1st place club with the 3rd rated SS in the CC by 19 leaving both clubs with identical records fail to play in the N.C. game.

Clearly updates have been done with out a melt down I think it is fair to think that indeed the product can be upgrade again.

I totally agree with your first statement. My point is that it was updated with a simplified formula to fix the problem, but it did really fix it. (atleast at Div 1A) I would like to see it fixed as well, but don't want to see it changed again six months from now due to another so called "easy fix."

Posted by taladar on 11/20/2012 6:07:00 PM (view original):I just want the game AND rankings to make sense. And one cant be afraid of what MIGHT happen if u tweak it. By that logic noone wuld ever do ANYTHING in life cuz "it may turn out bad" or "make things worse" . Never Know till u try.

- 1000 I don't think anyone is afraid of the change, but the current system (formula) was changed so that it made sense for users. (That was a year ago/over 10 GD season) I think the ranking system needs to be re-worked, but not if there isn't enough support to continually make "tweaks" to fix the problem. I don't believe that any of us would like to wait another year for the "tweak" to be updated. (especially if it is worse)